Need some Ideas Please! Help!

[scuppers]

Hello!

I am new here and am really in a pickel. I have a document that I have to put together on improving absenteeism, efficiencies and revenue generators to move forward to a second interview for a managment position. I have some ideas that I have come up with, incentive programs, communication, peer to peer coaching etc. The one that I am really stuck is revenue generators....we have RPC that we have to meet and I know how to coach to it but for whatever reason my mind is drawing a blank! I need ideas outside of product sales...can any one help????? Any suggestions about improving absenteeism and efficiency would also be welcomed.!!!

Thanks.
Scuppers.

[Les Hyde]

Absenteeism is a hidden cost driver as you lose efficiencies and/or customers due to higher wait times to speak to a CSR. The other impact of absenteeism it distracts the team as you start the corrective action process. Each step requires resources of a supervisor, manager and an HR person up to the point where you separate employees. And now you need to recruit their replacements. All of these steps require labor, and the recruiting, training and bringing new people up to speed is also very manpower intensive.
Measuring the cost of a lost customer as well as the cost of recruiting a new customer is also an important measure and can usually be obtained from your finance and or marketing department.

Can you now construct cost models based on flowing out the steps for:

corrective actions, recruiting replacements, training, the learning curve, lost customers and advertising for new customers?

If your supervisors and managers weren’t distracted with absenteeism and the associated corrective actions, how much more productive would they be? And wouldn’t there time be better spent with the CSR’s who want to be there?

Creating and maintaining a culture of performance requires a lot of thought, effort and discipline. In my opinion, addressing the basics of why you have high absenteeism and documenting the costs will be your foundation for the improvements you are hoping to achieve in revenues and culture.

[ned2006]

I agree with Les, absenteeism is quite a large component of revenue loss.

With regard to other Sales Generators, other than Product Enhancements, you may want to look at a few ratios. For example:

1. Leads Used - Productivity
2. RPC (Right Party Contacts) - Managing the Lead
3. Sales to RPC Ratio - Quality and Training

These relationships are vital in managing any Outbound TeleSales force as there needs to be a balance between them. Unfortunately there is no blanket approach when managing agents,it has to be individual management, however, you need to set targets and benchmarks that govern the behaviour of each seat.

When looking at how many leads an agent needs to get through per hour/day, you will have to know how long the script is that the agent will be communicating to each prospect, how many questions the script will ellicit (open ended questions should be avoided at all times, try as much as possible to use questions that require a Yes/No answer) and how long will it take to capture all relevant information to complete each sale. Once this has been established you should have a fair idea of the call duration for each SALE. Please note that not all calls will result in sales (unfortunately), so agents should be able to get through a lot more leads. You might want to take into account how many telephone numbers you will have per lead.

Agents that go through leads too quickly might not be calling all the telephone numbers, or might be selective in who they speak to. Should you have a Predictive/Power Dialler, this will assist in managing the agents for you, however, there will still be agents that either burn too many leads, or too few.

Once the benchmark for the number of leads to be called per day has been set, you will have to look at the relationship of RPC's to Leads Used. This ratio can be determined up front if you know how reliable the source of your data is, or if you have worked on similar data in past campaigns

What is key to monitor is the RPC Ratio per individual. An agent with a lower RPC Ratio than the Average, might not be calling all the numbers, or might not be following up on Scheduled Calls etc.

The last ratio that is key for you to keep your eye on is the relationship between RPC's and Sales. You might find that agents are calling the right amount of leads, have the right RPC Ratio, but just don't make the sales. This could be as a result of a few things:
- The Agents Sales Ability (Sales Training/Coaching Required)
- The Quality of the Call (Call Listening and Feedback to Agent Required)
- The Agents Product Knowlege (Product Training Required)


Managing these Metrics, combined with managing absenteeism as well as having a good Reward & Recognition programme is key to having a succesful Sales Centre.